A microchip is pictured on a woman's finger during a presentation of the German Bundesdruckerei
A microchip is pictured on a woman's finger during a presentation of the German Bundesdruckerei (German Federal Print Office) and the Fraunhofer-Institut for Reliability and Micro Integration (IZM) in Berlin July 11, 2007. The chip, which is less than 10 micrometres thick, will in future be used in paper-based security documents like passports. Reuters/Arnd Wiegmann

The Michigan Micro Mote or M^3 is now considered to be the smallest autonomous computer in the whole world as it can fit on the edge of a nickel. Researchers at the University of Michigan worked on this tiny gadget for more than 10 years.

“The Internet of Things (IoT) describes a world in which, every day, common objects have intelligence – like a toaster, a washing machine or a doorknob,” Dag Spicer, the senior curator at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, said. “All of those things will someday have integrated circuits in them that can talk to each other over a network.”

The M^3 may be so small, but it can take pictures, read temperatures, as well as record pressure readings. The device’s makers made it in the hopes of implementing it into a multitude of medical and industrial applications, as reported by CNET.

The oil industry has already gone ahead by verbalizing that they want the M^3 for their oil wells. Installing the Micro Mote into their wells will help them in detecting pockets of oil which can still be extracted before having to move on to a new oil source.

The device is extremely small that it can easily be injected into the body. This might please medical institutions since it can easily perform ECGs, take blood pressures, and figure out whether or not the person was having a fever.

The researchers at the University of Michigan are not the only ones who are pursuing the IoT movement. The entire tech industry has been relentless in proving to the world that size and power are everything, according to CBS News. That said, UoM’s scientists had to figure out a way to scale down the M^3’s battery size.

“What people do not realize is a very large part of the volume of a computer, for instance, in a cell phone, is actually consumed by the battery,” stated David Blaauw, UoM’s professor of computer science and engineering. “So, by bringing down the power, we can bring down the battery size and we can bring down the whole system down in size.”

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